Access to affordable family planning services helps women have safer pregnancies, healthier babies and fewer unintended pregnancies. Low-income Americans can access affordable family planning services through a program called Title X, which provides millions of women with services ranging from contraception and pap smears to screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and breast cancer.
Each year, approximately 4 million young and low-income women and men receive basic health care through the nearly 4,100 clinics nationwide that receive Title X funds.1
For many women, Title X clinics provide the only basic health care they receive. Unfortunately, the Title X program is drastically underfunded and under constant political attack. In fact, over the last several years, anti-choice members of Congress have tried repeatedly to entirely eliminate this vital reproductive-health program.
Without Title X clinics, millions of women would not be able to afford needed family-planning services. The effects are dangerous for women’s health. Lack of access to family planning services makes it even harder for women to have healthy pregnancies. Women miss out on screenings for sexually transmitted diseases, as well as for breast and cervical cancer. And many Americans, especially young women, face the prospect of an unintended pregnancy.
In the face of these risks, anti-choice members of Congress continue to refuse to act to help women and families. We must fight back against these threats to ensure everyone has access to family planning services, regardless of their income.
1 Department of Health and Human Services, Title X Family Planning Annual Report: 2015 National Summary